Need info for building Falcon 3.0 486 PC
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LOL…I was King of the World back in the day with my smoking 486dx4 and 2 MB of RAM…ran Falcon 3.0 like a dream.
:rofl: …. Those were the days. Today your refrigerator probably has more processing power … :rofl:
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Don’t forget to buy a Roland MT-32 off of Ebay for Falcon 3.0! It sounds really nice with that synth hooked up.
Of course… you’ll have to get a MPU-401 “intelligent mode” compatible ISA card for it since you’ll be running pure DOS. It gets pricey fast. The MT-32 sounds sooooo good though!
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And brush up on your DOS commands …. you gotta run that bad boy with (?)600kb of memory open.
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And brush up on your DOS commands …. you gotta run that bad boy with (?)600kb of memory open.
612K IIRC to have voices…LMFAO.
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Yeah, I can definitely run it in DosBox and use my CH Combat stick and throttle. I have it as close as I possibly can get to the real thing by tuning the cycles using norton, however its not the same and it is noticeable by the flying characteristics. The reason is DOsbox, does every instruction in one cycle, but back in the day some instructions were done in 4 cycles some in 2 some in 3 some in one. Falcon 3.0 was very sensitive to the CPU. You can try this on your own to see what I am talking about. Run PCEm and use the 486 Bios, then go into instant action, you can see how smooth the flying is. Then run in dosbox and run with 8500 cycles (about as close to a 486 33 as possible) and go into instant action. You will see that the graphics are too fast for the sim and things are out of whack. If you run in high fidelity mode, DosBox runs it way too fast and things get crazy.
Settings in DosBox will allow you to fly 3.0 You should have the “read me” file. How fast is your CPU? 8500 cycles may be too fast. Also, graphics emulator needs to be turned down. 8500 cycles will depend on your current CPU. I believe you can get her running, but you will have to play with it.
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Have “BOXED” Falcon gold cd, contains 3.0, MiG 29, Hornet, keyboard maps, DETAILED MAPS, warranty card … On the bottom of the box it states:
IBM 80386 or 80486
1 MB RAM with DOS 5.0+ (604k free)
2MB RAM with EMS recommended
VGA graphics required
CD-ROM drive required
Hard drive required
Joystick and mouse recommended
Ad Lib, Soundblaster adn Roland supportedATOK requirements:
IBM 33MHz 80386 or 80486
2MB RAM with EMS or XMS
Super VGA graphics required
VESA compatible
(640 x 480 x 256 colors)
CD-ROM drive required
Hard drive required
Sound Blaster, ProAudio Spectrum or Windows
Sound System required for audio.The chart I have in the release notes and comms handbook shows
25 MHz 486+ for max detail, terrain on, horizon on and clouds on.The AOTK player in the FALCON GOLD FM asked for a 33MHz 80386 or 80486
The Falcon 3.0, MiG-29 and Hornet NSF Customer Support Q&A booklet says system requirements are MIN. 12 MHz 80286, whereas it says OPTIMAL would be a 20 MHz 80386 system or faster.
Does this help, or is Gold too new? The E.B.S. FALCON 3.0 IBM Flight Manual that I have with it says it’s the Third edition, March 1993. Too new?
-Babite -
Have “BOXED” Falcon gold cd, contains 3.0, MiG 29, Hornet, keyboard maps, DETAILED MAPS, warranty card … On the bottom of the box it states:
IBM 80386 or 80486
1 MB RAM with DOS 5.0+ (604k free)
2MB RAM with EMS recommended
VGA graphics required
CD-ROM drive required
Hard drive required
Joystick and mouse recommended
Ad Lib, Soundblaster adn Roland supportedATOK requirements:
IBM 33MHz 80386 or 80486
2MB RAM with EMS or XMS
Super VGA graphics required
VESA compatible
(640 x 480 x 256 colors)
CD-ROM drive required
Hard drive required
Sound Blaster, ProAudio Spectrum or Windows
Sound System required for audio.The chart I have in the release notes and comms handbook shows
25 MHz 486+ for max detail, terrain on, horizon on and clouds on.The AOTK player in the FALCON GOLD FM asked for a 33MHz 80386 or 80486
The Falcon 3.0, MiG-29 and Hornet NSF Customer Support Q&A booklet says system requirements are MIN. 12 MHz 80286, whereas it says OPTIMAL would be a 20 MHz 80386 system or faster.
Does this help, or is Gold too new? The E.B.S. FALCON 3.0 IBM Flight Manual that I have with it says it’s the Third edition, March 1993. Too new?
-BabiteThank you Babite!! this is exactly what I was looking for. This piece of info in particular is really impiortant “25 MHz 486+ for max detail, terrain on, horizon on and clouds on.”
Looks like I am now in the market for a 486dx-25 processor.
Thank you!
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That was relevent to Falcon 3.0, if you also wanted AOTK they liked it higher. 3" floppy discs, or the 5"?
Good luck getting it together.
-Babite -
I still have all of my Falcon 3 stuff including the stick. The CPU you want is at least a DX33 MHz but I used to run it quite well on my X2 66mhz. Also if you can find yourself a dos memory manager like QUEMM which sill squeeze as much ram out of that 640k limitation into the higher addresses if you have it. My machine at the time and 1meg ram which ran perfectly. The DX also lets you use the high fidelity FM which uses the math coprocessor. Also if you have the machine that has Vesa Local Bus that helped with video performance a lot.
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Couldn’t you just create a FreeDos USB boot stick on your current PC and run DOS?
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You would be better off, and probably more successful, looking for an INTEL 486-66 processor. This was the processor of choice for F3. Don’t settle for Cyrix or AMD or any other, compared to Intel they did not have the power.
Also, look for software called QEMM - Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager. This will make the 604K+ base memory allocation simple. Manipulating DOS back then was a total nightmare and could take the uninitiated hours of frustrated tweaking before hitting the magic number.
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My 486 computer arrived today, I cant wait to fire it up and hit the skies of Panama, Kuwait and Israel!
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Even QEMM didnt guarantee success getting conventional (lower) RAM free.
I still have nightmares tweaking autoexec.exe and config.sys for hours on end in the Dark Days of DOS.
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autoexec.bat lol not exe… yeap nightmare and all those tricks emm high and etc to gain some kbytes… and now we have 8gb and we say we need more…
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got it all working last night!
oh the things we take for granted these days. Like simple things looking left and right! Falcon 3 had a boot disk maker so it wasn’t too bad getting it to work. Basically i installed using a CD rom, then had falcon create a boot disk and manually added the soundblaster lines to config.sys and autoexec.bat.
I am currently flying in Panama! in 256 colors!
Also I finally proved there is a massive difference between running it on real 486 hardware and emulated Dosbox 486. on real hardware the High fidelity is smooth as butter. The timing is spot on.
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got it all working last night!
oh the things we take for granted these days. Like simple things looking left and right! Falcon 3 had a boot disk maker so it wasn’t too bad getting it to work. Basically i installed using a CD rom, then had falcon create a boot disk and manually added the soundblaster lines to config.sys and autoexec.bat.
I am currently flying in Panama! in 256 colors!
Also I finally proved there is a massive difference between running it on real 486 hardware and emulated Dosbox 486. on real hardware the High fidelity is smooth as butter. The timing is spot on.
Have you explored running DOS natively on your current PC? Even modern systems can still run DOS natively.
The code shouldn’t be slaved to the clock of the system, although if it is that would be an issue.
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Screenshots or you’re making it all up.
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hi, just found your thread.
I am very happy, i am not the only one flying Falcon 3.0 (+ datadisc) today! I can say… after these years… I fully enjoy the sim finally. I had rather unpatched version back in 90ths(many bugs and pain), no 3rd party patches(shoulder launched missile patch is must have imo) and utils as well…
Without mentioned missile patch, Strelas and Stingers will kill your wingmans (and u) at 20K, 600kt! It was frustranting very often before…
Another great util is fce.exe - u can port your next camp. mission into redflag, adjust flights, enjoy non Nevada terrain and put it back to campaign.I run floppy version (F3.05, Hornet,MiG). It is not compatibile with Falcon Gold in multiplayer. But there is nothing additional in Gold version regarding simulation, just missing multiplayer Hornet model in database!* So F-18 is invisible in MP during Gold session. So it is better to patch floppy version. It take some time, but its worth it.
BTW i also use “sobject” - “object” trick to see detailed(tacref) models in game 3D.I have it on two laptops and one inetPC with (dosbox 0.74 - has IPX emulation …not like 0.73). I run MP missions with my two sons without problem. F3.0 has great feature - it has AI autopilot. So if in trouble, my youngest son can press “A” and watch AI maneuvers. F3 stylized graphics is also great to his eye, he is not schoolboy yet and he draws MiG-29 perspectives with ease.
to your DosBox problem
about year ago, i posted this dosbox setup:
https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?15138-bandit-bandit&p=215321&viewfull=1#post215321
it is not bad, but it is missing frameskip 1…it is quite essential if u have stutters and bad timing…do not care about intro timing - this one is not good (you can enjoy intro on youtube)
I play it with CPU speed 20000-25000, frameskip 1 and it is smooth.
I also like Dosbox upscaler - i fly 966x625 resolution with black right and left borders on my “wide” laptop LCD.yesterday I had some fun with Kuznetsov carrier (i have horizon gradient off not because of framerate, but because I like it more unshaded):
I would like to post some videos, but youtube is enlarging and screwing my small and sharp tapes (i use dosbox for video capture and original 320x200).But there is still something missing on my hardrive to unleash full potential of this sim. I try hard to find some falcon utils - StratFalc(by Bill White) and Falcon Test Pilot(by Greg Pierson). It is imposible to contact authors today. I know it was problem even around 2000.
*I would be able to put MP Hornet model into Gold databse with Test PilotWhen i did some inet search, i found some old util screenshots using wayback machine. I also found threads, where authors claimed, they would provide utils for free, if they can find them…
If someone could help me, I would be very happy.
thanks in advance. -
BUMP about StratFalc and Falcon Test Pilot utils
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Hehehehehhee…